Team BABE

[CommandoBob]

Looks good to me. The content is fine; the only change I would suggest is just on the formatting. I think the sentence 'I remain your humble and obedient servant.' should be it's own paragraph, since it is part of the closing.

Well, it was in all the Horatio Hornblower books I read, anyway.

 

[aluka]

The Hornblower books were an enjoyable read.

I made the suggested change. Here, as a formality, is the text of the revised letter that was sent to BABE.

A communiqué to the great people of BABE:

The primeval instinct of man to explore his surrounds and learn of the world the great Meleet created has led our explorers to your shore. They have braved the treacherous seas and are currently near the city of Maryann. Though the beauty of the women of BABE is legendary there is no landing party aboard the ship. Their mission is one of exploration of the seas only and they bring the friendship between the people of FREE and the people of BABE with them. As these are your coastal waters we wish to ask if there are areas to which you forbid them to sail? If that is the case they will respectfully adhere to your wishes.

I remain your humble and obedient servant.

Aluka
Ambassador of FREE to BABE

Let FREEdom ring,
Let the white dove sing...

 

[Empiremaker]

Note: BABE is in the Middle Ages

 

[CommandoBob]

Is it me or do these coastlines look the same?

Images are from Turn 107, 430 BC.

Northwest, centered on Ninhursag-Ki

Spoiler :

Teal Torpedo

Spoiler :

 

[aluka]

Yes they're pretty much the same. If you go back to the images of where we first made land fall you'll see the difference is in the luxuries/resources.

 

[CommandoBob]

Could this mean we all have the same basic landmass?

 

[aluka]

It almost certainly does mean that.

 

[Empiremaker]

We need to send a letter to BABE asking them not to blockade our galley. It is quite annoying, and with a third galley, we would have to risk sinking.

 

[CommandoBob]

Babe has not responded to our message from June 21, after Turn 103. That was 10 turns ago. I don't think they'll repsond now.

Regardless, we do need to try to talk to them. Probably pointless, but they need to be refusing us, not us ignoring them.

They have had one galley blocking our way for about the last five turns. I sorta understand that they don't want us to map their land and that is why they have made it so difficult, allowing only two moves per turn instead of three.

Do they fear an invasion from us?

I worry that their boat to our south might have troops in it, which is why I moved an EW that direction. I just hope that galley begins to map counter-clockwise.

On the other hand, our one galley is keeping two of their galleys from doing anything else.

 

[aluka]

Here is my proposal for our message to BABE. I think this will show that we aren't looking for direct confrontation but we see what is going on. We will see how they respond and decide on a diplomatic strategy to follow. If we receive an unsatisfactory reply we could ask in a sterner tone for a clarification.

We could even suggest a trade of maps between our teams to mask our current position and confuse BABE. This would be done in a way that would allow us to back away from a trade easily. Nevertheless we should inform the council of such a strategy, if we proceed, making it clear we have no actual plan for such a trade.

This is all just a suggestion of a diplomatic course we could follow depending on how BABE responds.

A communiqué to the great people of BABE:

We are again contacting you on the matter of exploration of our respective coastal waters. Not having received a reply to our previous inquiries over the matter of coastal exploration we decided that you had no concerns about our galley exploring the waters of BABE. (We hope that the previous communiqué was not lost on the way.)

The current positioning of naval units has, however, raised the potential of the possible perception of a strategy designed to slow the progress of our galley. We believe it is important that we keep our lines of communication open to decrease any chance of a misunderstanding and any distrust that could follow. Could you please voice any concerns you have over this matter?

We have also spotted naval units belonging to BABE off our west coast. Rest assured they will be allowed to proceed unimpeded for now.

I remain your humble and obedient servant.

Aluka
Ambassador of FREE to BABE

Let FREEdom ring,
Let the white dove sing...

I'll see what people think of the current message and make changes as needed before sending it.

 

[Empiremaker]

I think that looks fine.

 

[CommandoBob]

Looks goods; sounds right.

OK by me.

 

[aluka]

I've sent it to them. Here's the text once again as a formality.

A communiqué to the great people of BABE:

We are again contacting you on the matter of exploration of our
respective coastal waters. Not having received a reply to our previous
inquiries over the matter of coastal exploration we decided that you
had no concerns about our galley exploring the waters of BABE. (We
hope that the previous communiqué was not lost on the way.)

The current positioning of naval units has, however, raised the
potential of the possible perception of a strategy designed to slow
the progress of our galley. We believe it is important that we keep
our lines of communication open to decrease any chance of a
misunderstanding and any distrust that could follow. Could you please
voice any concerns you have over this matter?

We have also spotted naval units belonging to BABE off our west coast.
Rest assured they will be allowed to proceed unimpeded for now.

I remain your humble and obedient servant.

Aluka
Ambassador of FREE to BABE

Let FREEdom ring,
Let the white dove sing...

 

[aluka]

48 hours have now passed with no response. I for one think they're blockading us deliberately. If they don't respond in the next 24 hours I think we can say they won't respond to us on this issue at least and possibly for any issue in general.

Any thoughts on this matter?

 

[Elephantium]

We might want to think about sending another letter, somewhat more strongly worded, asking them to quit trying to blockade us.

 

[Empiremaker]

I don't think we are ready for war. But we may have to send a letter because turning around won't work because BABE's galleys are faster than ours.

 

[Empiremaker]

From BABE:

Dear Freedom Seekers,

We are waiting on some workers and settlers and hope this isn't a problem for you. Let us know what you'd like us to do. We've tried to avoid impeding your progress by moving along the sea lanes.

In the meantime, would you be interested in any trades or co research opportunities? We've noticed that you have engineering and we'd be interested in trying to structure some type of deal on this and the possibility of co research.

Let us know your thoughts.

The Babes

 

[Empiremaker]

Maybe we can get a map trade before we get The Council's map.

 

[Elephantium]

Their letter stinks of deception. If they're moving units, they don't need galleys in place to block us - having them in a stack would work just as well.

As for the co-research, it sounds like a smokescreen. We could play along, though, to try and worm some information out of them.

 

[Empiremaker]

True, I thought to myself, hm... "Why here" then I forgot about it.

I think we should get a map, then try and worm info. If we have enough info, we could try and get a tech, or sneak attack with an 'exploring galley'

BABE shouldn't need to co-research. They should be able to tell that FREE and Council are allied. Plus their ally GONG has the Glib. Maybe we have misread BABE, and they don't know GONG. Maybe we should inquire about contacts.